The separate stage in the crowd also gave intimacy to the enormous arena production. Donning a black flak jacket and Zoo TV cap, Bono stood alone on the smaller stage during "Bullet the Blue Sky," delivering his short, explosive attack on Central American civil war in military commando style.

He remained there for "Running to Stand Still," owning the spotlight in his dramatic portrayal of the agony of heroine addiction.

Throughout the concert, however, Bono refrained from becoming any more serious than the music required. His Zoo TV performance did not include any of his infamous political preaching or social sermons.

Though many critics and fans might welcome the change, Bono's new light-hearted attitude and pop-star posing seemed disturbingly incongruous with the heavy emotional quality of The Joshua Tree material. Bono almost began to reveal his social consciousness in his introduction to "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," but he carefully maintained the superficial Zoo TV front as he stated what he wanted to find: "An honest president, an end to this depression and a better TV station."

The March 13 Centrum stop on the Zoo TV tour also served as a birthday celebration for bassist Adam Clayton. In honor of Clayton's birthday, the band toasted him with champagne and led the crowd in singing "Happy Birthday," and a female "bunny-gram" bearing balloons adorned Clayton with bright pink boa and red wig.

The contrived gaiety of the spontaneous birthday celebration, so unlike U2, seemed curiously appropriate in the surrounding commercialism of Achtung Baby and the whole Zoo TV tour. In exploring new musical directions and casting aside its seriousness and social concerns for the new album and tour, U2 seems to have been desperate for something different. But for a band as popular with the critics and the public as U2, something different does not always mean something better.

The U2 concert at the Centrum could hardly be considered a failure, since their mere presence and the power of their music could save any show. Instead the performance was just a disappointment, something less than what one has come to expect from U2.